


Varric Alphabet

by historymiss



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Alphabet Meme, Drabble Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-31 19:50:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 8,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/pseuds/historymiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the alphabet challenge over on Tumblr. 26 drabbles featuring everyone's favourite dwarf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A is for Anders and Authour

Varric keeps his correspondence long after everything else about the mage has faded. Maybe he should throw it away: he certainly intends to, some days, but somehow the collection of ageing paper always escapes destruction.

Much like their authour, they are very good at escaping.

Sometimes, when he's feeling particularly nostalgic, Varric takes them out and reads them. They're written in a spidery scrawl that makes him rub his eyes and squint, and frequently devolve into doodles- a cat, leg raised, leaning against a door to clean itself, abstract whorls and spirals, endlessly falling feathers. Reading them, Varric feels a pang of pity for whichever mage had to read Anders' work back in the Circle (never having visited one himself, Varric imagines the Circle like a large, very unpleasant Chantry school of the kind his father used to threaten him with). 

He's not sure why he reads them, in the end. Maybe he's looking for clues, as if anything could really explain what happened, as if an explanation were needed. Maybe he simply wants to remember Anders' voice- all their voices, exactly as they were. Too often Varric only remembers how he made them in his tale. Did Merrill really make daisy chains on Sundermount, or did he invent it? Was Isabela's laugh as filthy as a Darktown gutter, or was that turn of phrase just a clever trick to make the Seeker purse her lips and frown?

Anders' letters, though, are real, and as he re-reads them Varric can touch that truth again.


	2. B is for Beard

"I don't understand, Varric."

Varric looks across the table to where Merrill sits, swinging her legs. 

"What don't you understand, Daisy?" he asks, patience edging out over frustration. It's good to see Merrill away from that mirror for a change, but honestly he's beginning to doubt the value of a talking elvhen paperweight.

"You don't have a beard." Merrill frowns, the lines of her vallaslin creasing. "Hawke does. Anders has kind-of-a-beard, and Sebastian only has one when we wake him up very early."

Fenris refuses to be drawn on the subject of beards, so Merrill tactfully leaves him out.

"Excellently observed." Varric replies, re-reading the sentence in front of him for the third time. "And what about this confuses you?"

"Shouldn't you be the one with the beard?" Merrill swings her legs around and crosses them on the table in front of her, elbows propped on her knees, the better to stare at Varric. "Every other dwarf I've ever seen has one. Except Sandal." 

There's a pause, then Merrill adds brightly, "Can you not grow one? Carver couldn't."

"I could if I wanted." Varric replies, a little offended. "I choose not to." 

"Oh." Merrill thinks on this for a second. "Why? Don't you want people to know that you're a dwarf?"

"Daisy, if people want to know I'm a dwarf all they have to do is look down." Varric puts down his quill and scratches his chest. "It boils down to this: Unlike most dwarves, I don't want to look like my father, and all that hair on my face would be terribly uncomfortable."

"Beards seem like they're more trouble than they're worth." Merrill concludes, picking up a spare piece of parchment and folding it absently. Varric nods, and turns his attention back to his paperwork.

"My thinking precisely."


	3. C is for Crossbow

"It's a sin." Sebastian says, in the weary tones of a man who will have to repeat himself not too far from now, and who will never, ever be listened to.

"It's baffling." Aveline shrugs, one night in Lowtown after Bianca's string has come loose and they spend a panicked half an hour restringing her in the dark.

"It's downright unfair." Isabela purrs, sliding her finger along the brass chasing as the lights of the Hanged Man turn the intricate carving to gold.

"It's intriguing." Hawke muses, as he flicks through the latest proofs of Hard in Hightown and their loving descriptions of Brennicovic's crossbow.

It is, frankly, none of their business, and Varric actively resists any attempt on his friends' part to fully understand his relationship with Bianca.

Some stories are better if they're private.


	4. D is for Deep Roads

"We're here." Bartrand announces after a day or so of trekking through caves, the twist of pride in his voice evident as he indicates where the bare rock of the tunnels gives way to carved pillars. "Welcome home, Varric."

Varric saunters forward, looks around, and finds himself utterly underwhelmed.

He had always assumed that he would feel more than this: Varric is, though he might protest to the contrary, an idealist, and the thought of visiting the Deep Roads had sparked some curiosity in him as to what might be stirred by the sight of the ancestral halls of the dwarves. Bartrand had done his best, retelling hazy memories of Orzammar and the journey to the surface, but he did not have Varric's gift for evoking a place. Despite himself, Varric had approached this expedition with a growing excitement- to find a place meant for his kind, after living so long among humans, might truly be something to see. 

The truth, as always, completely fails to live up to reality.

The dim light of the torches picks out the severe lines of the carvings: statues that seem to glare at him from the walls and interlocking carvings that look almost like gates barred shut. His mind's eye sketches in the details erased by time- righting a fallen column, cleaning rusty lamp stands, furnishing the bare hooks with hangings. It would have been magnificent, he is sure, but it is a harsh and unfriendly magnificence that does not welcome these surface invaders. Varric has never felt more of a surfacer than he does at that moment, and truthfully, he's relieved.

"It's very nice." he manages, for Bartrand's sake, before rolling his eyes at Hawke and continuing on, down the route that takes them deeper.


	5. E is for Editing

Here are three stories that Varric never tells the Seeker:

1\. When they go through Bartrand's goods after what happened… happens, Varric finds a stack of his own novels. They're packed neatly in a crate on their own, although there's no indication that they have been read. He picks one up and flicks through it, although he has no idea what he's looking for. Their presence in the house is a small mystery, but it's one that he likes enough not to solve.

They get a decent price the next evening at the Hanged Man, which is something that Varric feels Bartrand would appreciate, were he in any state to know.

2\. Donnen Brennicovick was originally intended to have a mage contact in the Gallows. Varric goes back and forth on how to depict them: sometimes they are an elf with a bright smile and a sideline in nature spells, sometimes they are a young woman whose magic is as warming and powerful as sunlight, and often they are the mysterious but hapless Libertarian agitator with an Ander accent. 

The character never quite makes it to the finished work, though: Maybe it's because they mutate so often, or maybe it's because Varric himself professes no interest in magic beyond its narrative convenience. Privately, he tells Hawke that three mages in real life are enough, and he doesn't need to invent any more.

3\. There is a brief period when supernatural romances are in vogue and Varric tries his hand at writing about a werewolf who falls in love with a young Kirkwall maiden. It is terribly tragic and very popular, spawning a sequel and a popular series of prints. It is also, he feels, the worst thing he's ever written, but sometimes you must do terrible things for money, and the new stock it buys for Bianca is almost worth the dirty feeling Varric gets when he spots copies out and about.

(The werewolf was an elf with shaggy white hair who growled more often than he spoke. Varric never thought he would be grateful for illiteracy- it's funny how these things work out)


	6. F is for Father

The Merchant's guild is crowded, as always: Varric has to push his way diplomatically through several of the most important families on the surface before he is able to navigate a clear path through the entrance hall. 

Of course, this would be easier if he was with Hawke, or Isabela, or maybe even Andersl, but this is something that Varric has to do alone. He used to come here with Bartrand, but. Well. Bartrand can't, any more, so he has to make do.

Once he's through the entrance hall, things become a little easier. Varric's been coming here since he was very young- it was here that his father introduced him to the rest of the merchants ('another son, a spare') and here that he started telling his first stories, practical things that shaped the way his family's business interests ran and reassured uneasy investors who had heard all the wrong rumours about Andvar Tethras.

The corridors wind and twist, seeming to continue far longer than they should. They smell of dust, and smoke, and stone. Of long hours spent reading the latest serials on hard wooden benches while his father talked, and even longer inventing his own to amuse the other kids. Eventually, they open out into an underground hall filled with statues, an expanse much larger than anyone would expect from the building above (and, in fact, much larger than it appears on the Viscount's official records).

Varric finds the right statue with ease- to his mind, it's the only one that looks tired. He appreciated that, the day of the funeral.

At the foot of the statue, as with all the others, is an urn.

"Atrast tunsha." The words are both familiar and strange. "Totarnia amgetol tavash aeduc."

Varric does not believe in the Stone, or Ancestors, or the honoured dead. But he believes in duty, and he is the only one left to carry it out.


	7. G is for Genre

"Varric, what genre are we?"

Varric turns and looks up at Aveline. She's studying Hawke thoughtfully, not frowning exactly but clearly troubled by whatever's going on underneath that headband.

"I'm sorry?" Varric can't resist the note of sarcasm that creeps into his voice. "I thought you didn't approve of my serialising our adventures." 

Aveline shakes her head. "You know what I mean. If we are a story, Varric, what genre are we?"

Varric thinks. Aveline's life, he's sure, is one of those biographies that people read to be improved or uplifted. It turned into a comedy for a while with Donnic, and before he met her he's heard it was a tragedy, but Aveline herself will be alright. He's certain of it. Merrill and Anders, however? Tragedy, for sure. It breaks his heart to think of it, and he's doing his best to try and change it, but a writer can tell the signs. 

Fenris, he has no idea. Can vengeance be a genre? There can't be three tragedies in the group. That would be too much. At least Isabela's story is one of those ones with the interesting covers, the things that pile up under beds or in nightstands. One part of it is, anyway: despite her best efforts, Varric suspects that she's more romance than smut. 

Sebastian is one of those boring Lives of the Saints that they give out at the Chantry. 

Hawke? Hawke is the one that binds them all together, the epic that sustains the group and provides the stream from which the other stories flow. 

Varric shrugs, suddenly aware that he's been quiet for longer than he should.

"I don't know. We'll see how it ends."


	8. G is for Gerav

G is for Gerav

 

Varric paces.

He's been pacing for hours.

"Are you done in there yet?" he shouts, another circuit of the room completed.

"Just about!" Gerav calls back, although he's been saying that for the past hour and a half, and Varric is beginning to think that's he's not being entirely honest.

That's what you get for funding one of the flakiest engineers in the Carta, a small inner voice reminds him, but Varric ignores it, because he's seen the plans and he knows that they can work, that Gerav has the smarts to make them work if he just had the time and the money, and Varric can give him both.

"Gerav, I swear to the Maker, if you don't finish soon-"

"Done!"

He's been waiting for that moment to come out, Varric is sure of it. The door to the workshop swings own and Gerav swaggers out, carrying the most beautiful thing that the dwarf has ever seen in his life.

"I won't bore you with the specifics." Gerav grins. "You know 'em all anyway. Your crossbow, messere."

Varric takes her gently, feeling out the heft and balance, the way her string, pulled taut, sings with tension.

"She'll need a name." Gerav says, fingering the dagger at his belt, the one he's called Mirabelle- a name he plans to pass along, if this work of his is can be repeated (it'll need to be if they want to break even).

"Bianca."


	9. H is for Hawke

So, you want to hear about the Champion?

Or do you? Do you want to hear the same story that's told in every rathole and tavern across Thedas: the mighty warrior who used the Arishok's skull as a gravy boat and thumbed their nose at the Chantry, who helped the mages and saved the day, just as easy as breathing? I've told it a billon times, I could tell it again for you, if you'd like.

Do you want the Chantry version? I can do that for you, too, though you'd be betraying your terminal lack of taste. Apostate, demon, money-grubbing agitator who rose to high and whose fall from grace was inevitable. I heard that Hawke may not even be as noble as they claimed. Amazing that they duped the nobility for so long.

Sorry, I need a drink to take the taste of that from my mouth. You'll buy me one, right?

Good.

So do you want to hear about the real Hawke? The refugee- and Kirkwall never let them forget that, did it? The circles under their eyes and the way they stood when they thought no-one was watching- that sag and drop of the shoulders (a city's a heavy thing, even in spirit, after all). They way they laughed, that desperate edge, because Maker knows you've got to enjoy it while it lasts.

The way they faced dragons and qunari and blood magic with nothing more than bad jokes and rhetoric, the stupid things they said (you'd have to be a bit stupid to let yourself become a Champion)- the stupid things they did for love, when the end came.

I'll ask you again. 

Do you want to hear about the Champion?


	10. I is for Isabela

"I hope you're going to put those back where you found them."

Varric doesn't even look up. Isabela seats herself across from him, putting her feet up on the table and crossing her legs, long and brown and strange-looking without the expanse of leather and buckles that normally covers them. Several of the Hanged Man's other patrons suddenly choke into their drinks.

"I see why you like this shirt." She plucks at the silk, feels it whisper in her fingers. This is fine stuff indeed, only the best for a dwarven merchant lord. "It's very flattering. Good for framing things."

This does make Varric look up, although only to frown in mock exasperation.

"Heaven's sake, Rivaini, you make me sound like a picture."

"Not a picture." Isabela ponders. "Some kind of magnificent sculpture. A masterwork, perhaps Orlesian in style."

Varric nods. "I couldn't make a worse statue than Hawke."

Isabela laughs, which sets the fabric of the shirt rippling in interesting ways. Like water, Varric wonders, or is that too much of a cliche to use?

"Have you seen the one in Lowtown? It makes him look like an angry nug."

That, however, is a description that Varric will definitely be using later. He raises his mug, and Isabela clinks hers against it.

"To statues." Isabela throws her drink back in one go. "And framing things correctly." She wiggles in her seat and winks at a passing lowlife, who trips on his feet.

"I could get used to this."

"If you stretch that shirt, you're buying me a new one."


	11. J is for Jewellery

"I don't know if we should be doing this, Varric." Bartrand's hands hover over the box nervously, as timid as his brother's ever likely to get. "Father wouldn't-"

"Father's not here." Varric says evenly, using his reasonable tone at full power. "And we need the money. What, you're afraid father's going to jump out of there and accuse you of dishonouring the family?"

Bartrand glares at him, but he still doesn't open the box.

It's a squat, dark thing, his father's strongbox: made from burnished metal and criss-crossed with bronze bands. Passed down from father to son, it's been in the Tethras family for generations, holding their valuables and secrets. When he was smaller, Varric used to pretend it was full of treasure. Years later, he saw Andvar open it and was disappointed to find that it was mainly documents: deeds, agreements, bills of sale. It didn't seem right, money like that tied up in something as mundane as paper. Dragons can't hoard it, for a start.

"We'll raise the money some other way, then." Varric sighs, and half-turns to leave, counting down in his head. "I think I know a likely candidate-"

"No." Bartrand stops him, right on cue. "We need to do this."

He opens the box, and rummages in the paper for a second before taking out a ring. It's large, heavy gold, embossed with a frowning dwarven face. There's still some scraps of wax caught in the engraving from the last time it was used- they flake off under Barrand's thumb, and fall to the floor, forgotten. Varric thinks of his own seal- a quill, nothing fancy- as Bartrand turns the ring over and over in the light.

"Father, forgive me." Bartrand mutters, putting the signet ring in his pocket.

"Father isn't here." Varric says shortly. "And your expedition needs the money."


	12. K is for Kirkwall

Extract from Kirkwall: An Insider's Guide, by Varric Tethras, first draft

Upon entering the City of Chains many visitors will wonder the same thing. Namely, what is with all the depressing statues? That, I cannot help you with. But, I may be able to help you with the second thought, which is, as with all visits to a new city, what shall I do here?

The answer, in a nutshell, is what can't you do here?

Though I am a lifelong resident of Kirkwall, the city's many charms are not lost on me- no, quite the opposite. I consider myself lucky to live within a stone's throw (please don't actually throw stones, the city guard take a very dim view of even the most responsible rock-throwing) of the tallest, greyest buildings this side of Starkhaven, the largest and most extensive sewer system in the Free Marches, and the spikiest sidewalks, well, anywhere. Kirkwall is a city that does not so much welcome visitors as look in their eye, assess their net worth and then take them for twice as much. 

Attractions in Kirkwall include the Blooming Rose, a house of, ahem, friendly companionship whose hiring policy, while depressingly discriminatory towards the shorter races in Thedas, nevertheless ensures a lively, if occasionally surprising, time for all. 

For less vigorous entertainment one can visit the city's many taverns: the Hanged Man in particular boasts a charmingly macabre taste in interior decoration and a variety of ales on tap, as well as a surprisingly spacious main room. Here you will find a great cross-section of the local colour, although many more idealistic visitors may be disappointed to find that this colour is mainly red, and all over your shirt. Local bards perform twice nightly, come near the end of the week for the best stuff. (Tell them Varric sent you.)

Families may want to visit the Chantry, one of the main centres for the more boring pious citizens of Kirkwall. A real treat for fans of frowny bronze women, the Kirkwall Chantry is open at all hours to give succour to needy citizens and soul-searching princes alike. Grand Cleric Elthina's sermons are decent, if a little repetitive. Less religious visitors will enjoy the shopping in Hightown, although more savvy customers will hit up the Lowtown markets for the good stuff.

On no account find yourself in Darktown. They will eat you alive.

But to truly experience Kirkwall one must not rely on locations or attractions: instead you must simply walk around and drink in the atmosphere. Nowhere in the world is like this place. There's a story waiting to be told around every corner- Kirkwall collects this stuff like silt in a drain or, perhaps, like gold in a pan. 

(I am not kidding about the sidewalks, by the way. Be careful.)


	13. L is for Loss

Kirkwall is never the same in the years that follow. Of course Varric has to stay- Bartrand has to be looked after, for a start, and one cannot simply dismantle the kind of empire Varric's built up over the years overnight. Besides, he's not built to be on the run: Varric is made to move at a more sedate pace. Leave the dashing about to humans or elves. Dwarves move slowly, or they make the world move around them instead.

So he stays, although at times he wishes he hadn't. The Hanged Man empties and refills, a tide of new life that will never quite replace the old. The rubble of the Chantry is cleared away from the streets and the damage of the explosion is carefully repaired (or at least it is in Hightown)- the people of Kirkwall avoid looking at the blank space in the skyline where the spire used to be. The Gallows remains shut. People begin to talk of ghosts that haunt the silent halls and fallen statues of the former Circle. No-one is brave enough to go in and check.

But though the life of the city goes on around him, Varric cannot escape a profound sense of loss. He walks the city and feels as if he is walking across an empty stage. What good is it to be a storyteller with no characters?

Aveline remains, it's true, but she is preoccupied with rebuilding Kirkwall and re-establishing order. He helps her compile lists of orphans, the missing, the dead. As things get back to normal they drift apart. Neither of them want to say what they both recognise: it was Hawke that kept them together. 

"I'll see you." Aveline says, that last evening, as Varric heads back to the Hanged Man and an evening's empty chatter.

"Yeah." 

Varric walks on, and doesn't look back.


	14. M is for Money

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> • Varric: Daisy, for my sake, please quit cutting through the alleys in Lowtown at night.  
>  • Merrill: Nothing ever happens. I'm perfectly safe, Varric.  
>  • Varric: Yes, I know. And that nothing is costing me a fortune.

Varric shuffles through his receipts. First up, there's a bill for mending a rent in his coat, caused by a bandit that inexplicably decided to bypass the armoured warriors disembowelling the rest of his party and rush the dwarf with the crossbow instead. He puts it to one side, held down under a stone that Merrill gave him ('it's shaped like Thedas', she explained, pressing it into his hand, although to Varric's eyes one lump of grey rock looks much like another). Next, Varric finds a reminder to himself to pay off the thugs who'd been planning to knock over the free clinic Blondie insists on keeping open in Darktown. That gets put aside to be dealt with first thing this evening, when his contacts become active and can be used to track down which palms need greasing.

Flyer printing for the latest Hard in Hightown. A note about the guard recruitment posters from Aveline- Varric grins, and makes a slight alteration. He's had an idea about that one.

Isabela's tab, which needs picking up this week because she spent the winnings of an entire game of Wicked Grace on a new hat. A receipt from a warehouse in the Docks that's been holding some impounded booze that might make Fenris slightly better company during tomorrow's card game- or at least make him crack a smile. A warning from Athenril- Merrill's been wandering again, and the smuggler's spotted her down several alleyways she shouldn't be. That gets put on the pile with the reminder about Anders- the one Varric mentally thinks of as expenses. It's topped off by another memo to himself that the annual bribe to the Merchant's Guild to stop them complaining about Hawke destabilising the economy every time he offloads another eight sacks of junk and assorted magical items onto the Hightown market. 

Varric's quill scratches down each expenditure, marking it against the incoming profits. Book sales form a third of it, along with other, less savoury business. It just about breaks even. Later on, these will be thrown away, or burned- never recycled, as his drafts are, because accounts are much more important than stories, even if the thought gives Varric an unpleasant itch in his stomach.

It's an expensive business, having friends, but Varric reckons it's worth it.


	15. N is for Nickname

It's the aftermath of another fight, bodies strewn across the road like, well, bodies: Varric always feels a little queasy comparing corpses to things. There was always the feeling that he was thinking too hard about it. There's work to do, anyway- as Aveline sheathes her sword and Anders enquires if anyone needs healing, Varric ambles over to the nearest body (an almost comically standard thug: shaved head, broken nose facial tattoos, details Varric carefully didn't register) and checks the pockets.

"Nothing here, Hawke." Varric calls, turning the thug over with a careful nudge of his boot. 

The shadowy hump that is Hawke, conducting a similarly pragmatic investigation, waves.

"You got it, Chesthair."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Hawke straightens, grins. "Chesthair. It's my new nickname for you."

Varric pauses, then decides there's no way in hell he's going to let this one go.

"In the name of the Maker, why?"

"It seems reasonable to me." Aveline chips in, in that perfectly level tone that means she's amused. "You've nicknamed the rest of us." Varric opens his mouth and she corrects herself hastily. "Most of the rest of us."

"I'm not even blonde." Anders grumbles from the corner where he's rearranging his feathers. One of the bandits had grabbed his cauldrons in the scuffle: the mage currently looks rather a lot like a startled chicken. Varric diplomatically ignores this: artistic license is his stock in trade, after all. Nobody wants to hear about a mage called 'slightly ginger-y'.

"When I give out nicknames, it's endearing." Varric points out. "When you do it, it's frankly kind of pathetic. I mean, Chesthair?" He clutches the aforementioned chest dramatically. "What am I, a piece of meat?"

Hawke shrugs. "I was considering 'dwarfy.'"

All things considered, Varric says writes later, it's lucky that the Champion knew me well enough to dodge before I drew Bianca. We all do things in anger that we regret.


	16. O is for Omission

Of all the things he's been called over the years, Varric hates being called a liar the most.

It's not that it isn't true- of course it is, but what really rankles, what makes Varric bristle when the Seeker spits the word in his face, is that this is something that he should be ashamed of. This is, to his mind, utter madness. Varric invents things for a living. Of course he's a bloody liar. People pay him to do it- why are they surprised when he delivers?

Besides, there are so many ways to lie. A hundred different twists and tricks to make the truth bend to his will, the best of which lie just on the borders of legitimacy, hinting at a greater truth that lends their tale a little more savour. Maybe Hawke didn't meet the Witch of the Wilds. Maybe they never helped a qunari assassin sneak into an Orlesian party. Maybe, just maybe, Hawke hadn't been the hero everyone- and especially Varric- makes them out to be. But wouldn't it have been good if they had?

It's in the things Varric doesn't say, the little details he neglects to mention. He doesn't say Hawke looked tired, because heroes don't tire. They don't make mistakes and slur their words from sheer exhaustion as they stand up from Arishok's corpse, staggering with fatigue and pain. He doesn't mention the times hawk came to him, all afraid, because suddenly this city was watching their every move. Heroes don't feel fear, after all.

Varric twists the truth, he turns the words and makes them dance, he lies by omission so that the empty spaces take on a new shape and point towards a fantasy Hawke- Hawke on her very best day, because that is what she deserves.


	17. P is for Pastries

One of the advantages of knowing Hawke- along with the endless supply of new material and the fact that nobody asks questions about the dwarf when there's a big noisy human hero-ing up the place- is that you get invited to the best functions. 

"I don't know how you can be so enthusiastic about this." Hawke hisses, fidgeting with the hem of her gown (a particularly hideous Orlesian confection that is, unfortunately, the height of current fashion). Across the hall, Meredith Stannard is holding court with a small assemblage of templars. The two women exchange an icy glare and Hawke fidgets even more.

"Honestly, I'd even prefer another tiff with the Arishok."

"Don't remind me of that." Varric replies, shuddering. "The bruises have only just faded." A minor exaggeration. Varric prides himself on his lack of scars compared to the rest of the party, and frankly he knows a lot more about everyone else's scars than he really should. "You could have duelled him one on one, you know."

Hawke makes an unladylike face. "You were just going to tell everyone I did that anyway. Might as well use every advantage I had."

She crosses her arms and sighs. '"I would duel six Arishoks to get out of this blighted party, though. How come you're so happy?"

Varric turns, grinning, and shows Hawke the pile of delicate Orlesian pastries heaped on his plate. "Like any writer, I came for the free food."


	18. Q is for Qunari

Ketojan is a mystery that Varric can never quite solve.

He returns to his desk that night, the smell of smoke clinging to him even after he changes his clothes, washes his hair, scrubs at his skin with all manner of Orlesian oils and soaps. It is an experience Varric will repeat a few years later, though he doesn't know it yet, to try and rid himself of the smell of a mansion cramped with bodies, the rank stink of fear and madness and desperation.

Eventually he sits, quill in hand, and stares at a roll of blank parchment.

It is not that he doesn't know what to write: Varric always knows what to write, what he wants to say- he wants to talk about Hawke, how it affected him, how they walked back to Kirkwall in silence, Hawke's hands worrying at the binding on his bow until the thing came loose, then winding it around and around his hands, tying up the words that wouldn't come. 

Varric himself was not in the mood for talking either. Qunari, simply put, freak him out. Looking at Ketojan's blind stare and sewn-up mouth had made his lips itch, the skin on his back crawling like he was being watched. Kirkwall has many, many problems, but coming face to face with something like the qunari mage, how he willingly embraced his death, has made Varric angry in a way he can't quite pin down.

The simple fact of the matter is that while Varric knows what he'd like to say, there's no words in which to frame it, or none that he can call to mind, at least. Varric doesn't quite know how to feel about the fact that his gift has cheated him like this. 

In the end, he sets down events exactly as they happened, no embroidering beyond the most reasonable of guesses at how Hawke felt (and that's not guesswork by now anyway), setting it down in black and white so that the reader may draw their own conclusions.

Varric may lie to his audience, but he also knows when to step back and let them judge for themselves.


	19. R is for Reading

Fenris frowns at the page, eyebrows furrowing in a way that reminds Varric of two caterpillars fornicating.

"Tuh." He says, eventually, one spiky gauntlet resting on the page. "Huh. Eh."

"Almost, elf." Varric interrupts, in his most encouraging tone. "Sound it out- look. We've had this word before. Tuh and huh make a sound together, right?"

He blocks the 'e' with one thumb, and looks back at Fenris, who is frowning even harder now, if such a thing were possible. It's all Varric can do not to laugh, he's so damn serious about this.

"Thhhhh?" The sound is turned into a question.

Varrric nods. "So we've got 'th' and…?"

"Eh?" Fenris shakes his head almost immediately. "No. Uh." He pauses. "The."

His eyes flick back down to the page, scanning for sounds he knows. "Cuh. Ah. Tuh. Cat." Fenris sits back and can't help the smirk of satisfaction that creeps across his face. "The cat."

Varric mock-applauds, the sound of his gloved hands echoing dully in the mansion. "Very good! You're reading like a pro."

"Don't patronise me." Fenris growls, and turns the next page of the book, where a brightly-coloured tiger grins at him. Underneath, bold letters spell out THE CAT RUNS. Fenris groans and reaches for the glass sitting on the table. "As stimulating as the last page, I see. Are you sure this is the best book to start with, Varric?"

"Baby steps, elf." Varric says, pushing his glasses up to his forehead and massaging the bridge of his nose. It's a long, boring, frequently frustrating job, but the only other person who wants to teach Fenris is Isabela, and frankly Varric doubts her commitment to phonics. 

"Start here and we'll be reading epics in no time."


	20. S is for Seeker

Cassandra Pentaghast does now know it, the day she drags Varric from his suite at the Hanged Man, bursts into the house he considers as valuable as his own, and interrogates him for four straight hours, but she makes a lifelong enemy.

Because she has made an enemy of Varric Tethras, however, his revenge is uniquely personal and, because the dwarf is accustomed to playing the long game, a touch delayed.

Some years later, while travelling in the Free Marches, Cassandra notices that there are copies of the same book lying around wherever her younger subordinates congregate. The books are quite slim, and all have the same bright pink cover.

One day, she picks one up and leafs through it idly, killing time until she has to go and meet some other Seeker. The title pages is embossed with intertwined roses and hearts, gold lettering spelling out Seek and Ye Shall Find. The main character, it quickly transpires, is a young Orlesian woman working for the Chantry who has a terribly turgid love affair with a Templar assigned to protect her as she carries out her duties. It makes little to no sense, contains several passages that are completely ludicrous, and is, much to Cassandra's disgust, completely addictive. There is far too much simpering, but something left in the character is familiar: the thick accent, the distinctive haircut- some of the passages feel uncomfortably like looking in a rather cruel mirror. 

(It helps that there are some extremely unflattering illustrations)

It's been written anonymously, so she's never quite sure, but Cassandra is increasingly convinced, as she turns the pages, that the author is that Kirkwall dwarf she interrogated. She can never really prove anything, of course, and would she have wanted to promote the comparison if she could?

The story follows Cassandra for most of the rest of her life, and that is, Varric feels, the very best type of revenge.


	21. T is for Timeline, T is for Tinkering

Before he writes up Hawke's story, Varric attempts a timeline. This is, he concludes later, a mistake. Piles of paper are criss-crossed by string: connected by threads that chart their way through just over a decade that, though Varric remembers vividly, often remains elusive in the exact details.

The story starts as a history- or more properly, a biography. Varric feels that he should honour Hawke with no less. He starts with the destruction of the Chantry and works his way backwards, scribbling down a rough timeline that soon expands to fill every space available. And as it expands, it changes, shifts under Varric's hands into something more comforting and much more familiar.

Not altogether unexpectedly (and somewhat to his relief), Varric finds himself writing fiction.

In some cases, this allows him to fudge the details. Change dates a bit to make them more dramatically fitting or simply forget them altogether, not bothering to specify details he doesn't remember. The hours spent in caves and sewers and the endless Wounded Coast are skimmed over entirely, a few words sufficing for each, for they are all that Varic wishes to waste on what doesn't interest him.

In other ways, though, the genre shift becomes harder. Fiction can be difficult to construct. Varric has to include more of himself than he really means to, betraying himself even as he steps back, nodding to his audience and in doing so reminding them that he is there. 

The book never really sells as well as Hard in Hightown or any of his other works, which rankles somewhat. Perhaps it is not as purely entertaining, or as escapist as his other fiction- Varric often finds that the work he values most is not the one that his audience actually wants to read.

Still, Varric keeps it in his catalogue, publishing new editions every so often despite what it costs him. He never stops working on it either. There are some stories that you simply cannot leave, a life's work in more ways than one.


	22. U is for Unresolved Sexual Tension

"Everybody ends up with someone, right?" Hawke asks idly one day, as they take some fresh air of dubious quality outside the Hanged Man. "Except you." Varric looks around.

"Explain."

"I've heard this story you're making about me-" Oh, it was going to be one of those kinds of conversations. Varric settles back and waits for the inevitable criticism, as if Hawke knows anything about writing a tale beyond those crude limericks he sometimes scrawls on Blondie's spellbooks.

"I end up with Fenris or Anders or Merrill or Isabela- thanks for that, by the way- and Merrill has Carver if I don't end up with her, and Isabela gets with Fenris, and Anders, okay, Anders is pretty much alone unless I'm with him but I'm with him a lot." Hawke explains in a rush, sketching his point somewhat drunkenly in the early evening air. "You're always telling the story, but you don't get anyone."

He finishes and looks down at Varric. "If I was telling the story, I'd put myself with everyone."

Hawke pauses. "Except maybe Aveline because I think she'd break my legs if that got back to her."

Varric leans back against the wall of the Hanged Man, the golden evening sun surrounding him with the smell of dusty stone. How can he explain that he makes up for it in other ways? That the flirting with everyone- the friendship with everyone- is all he needs? That it isn't so hard to not put yourself with one person when, technically, you know them all so intimately anyway that anything physical would, ultimately, be something of a let-down?

In the end, he opts for the obvious explanation. 

"I'm the storyteller, Hawke. Wouldn't do for me to get too involved in my own work." Varric shrugs. 'It's uncomfortably like masturbation. Besides-" Here we go, the old joke- "Bianca's the only girl for me."

Hawke groans, takes another swig from his tankard.

"I'm getting really tired of hearing that."

Varric's getting tired of saying it, too.


	23. V is for Voice

"I miss Varric."

They've been on the run for a few days now. Hawke is crouching near the entrance of the cave, watching the rain sheet down. Leandra called it 'stair-rods', Merrill says it's 'raining knives and forks', a phrase she picked up somewhere in the Alienage. 

"You miss him looking after you, you mean." Hawke stirs a little and looks around. Merrill shakes her head, braids dancing.

"I miss his stories." she pokes the fire. "I miss the way he made what happened to us seem special."

The sound of the rain intensifies. They got to the cave just in time, it seems.

"Back with the Dalish, we said that the poet is the voice of the tribe."

Hawke snorts. "Never really heard Varric's poetry." Poetry is something of a sore point with Hawke. 

"That's not what I meant." Merrill says sharply. "I meant, the things he said about what we did made it seem worthwhile. Significant. Like maybe we weren't just blundering about- we had a clan. You and me and him and Fenris and Aveline and Isabela and Anders and, oh, everyone. As long as Varric told his stories about us, we were a tribe."

She turns her attention back to the fire. "That's what it felt like, anyway. I never really noticed it until it stopped."

Hawke hates to admit it, but she has a point. Instead of saying that, though, he turns and forces a smile.

"If he was here he'd say 'cheer up, Daisy." Hawke's Varric impression is terrible- all exaggerated accent and gargly gravel, but it makes Merrill giggle. "You're bein' maudlin."

"Why, this reminds me of a story I know." Merrill's impression isn't much better. "Wanna hear it?"

Hawke moves closer into the cave and the rain continues on, unnoticed.


	24. W is for Wrinkles (dedicated to spicyshimmy and flutiebear)

Varric says he's not a children's writer, but then he says a lot of things, from 'I really don't know how anybody heard about that, Hawke, honest' to 'details, dammit Blondie, give me more details', so the existence of his stable of children's books is not that much of a surprise, even if he does do his best to publish them anonymously.

Besides, for anyone in the know the clues are there. Wrinkles the Oliphant, swimming towards freedom, out of his element in the city, all awkward knees and trunk bumping into things, never really able to find the right words to talk to Daisy, makes Hawke laugh himself silly. At least in public, till he can go home and read it again, quietly, self-consciously lonely. Anders is too busy to read the adventures of Ser Pounce-a-Lot (he's put away childish things) until one gets left in the clinic by a kid. He leafs through it that night, before leaving it- and a note- at the Hanged Man. Pounce is ginger in the next edition, although Anders is disappointed that there's no extended templar-chasing sequence.

It's not just cats and oliphaunts, either. There's Bearveline, who stomps around the forest to make it her own and stares down ogres- Varric never thought he'd get away with that one- and the story of the wyvern named Shivs who thought she was a dragon . Varric writes them for himself, really. He gets exhausted of writing the heavy stuff sometimes, just as his audience, he assumes, must get tired of reading it. Better to live for a little while in a simpler world. A brighter Kirkwall, where the colours are softer and the animals wear their colours on the surface.

("You must be responsible for half the creative output in Kirkwall." Hawke says, one print day, when the blocks are going full speed and pages are drying everywhere. "I'm the only author here that doesn't write about blood magic." Varric says, as if that explains anything. Really, it's the funny animals.)


	25. X is for Exterior

"You can't really be Hawke." The barmaid sneers. "Not you, not here."

"I can't?" This is news to Hawke, who has pretty much been himself as long as he can remember, or some version of himself, anyway. "Why not?"

"The real Hawke is six feet tall with a beard that sparks with magic, scars here and here-" the girl indicates on her own arms, sloshing beer about liberally, "Eyes like fire and a voice that booms like thunder. Just like in them books." She pauses, then decides that her point requires further elaboration. "I read 'em all. Great stuff."

"You can read?" Isabela mutters into her own mug. "Sweetie, I'm impressed."

"Goodness me, all of that?" Hawke regards himself, as much as he can. It's true that compared to that he's not very impressive, even though he really can't see how there's anything particularly wrong with the way he is. "Being this Hawke fellow sounds rather tiring."

"You're not even a mage." the barmaid concludes triumphantly. Hawke nods. She's right. He's not. (There'd been a scare when he was five when a haybale caught fire, but that had turned out to be 

"Can't magic up a sausage." he agrees cheerfully. "And I don't have a beard."

"So you see, you can't be him." she's a delightful girl, really, but somewhat vindictive in her triumph. "Heroes like Hawke don't hang around in taverns in the arse end of Ferelden, anyway. They've got more important things to do."

That last comment really does hurt, just a little, and Hawke declines to dignify it with an answer.

"You know," says Isabela, helping herself to another mug before the barmaid wobbles off to the next table, "I'm beginning to see why we're having less trouble with the templars than we thought we would."

Hawke nods, and clunks his mug against hers. "To Varric."

"To Varric." Isabela agrees. "And the man's crazy fixation with making you a hero."


	26. Y is for Yearning, Z is for Zzzzz

Varric keeps the shard longer than he should.

Perhaps he only means for it to give what happened in the Deep Roads- and to Bartrand afterwards- some significance. One does not lose a brother lightly, even one as difficult as Bartrand. While Varric is free to invent as many extra family members as he needs to oversee the various aspects of his empire (at the last count, Varric is about six other Tethras cousins, all of them far more dutiful than he is) and yes, there is significance in that, even if it is only the kind of significance that makes you do stupid things.

There are other reasons, too, that he's lined up in his head to give if Hawke ever challenges him. But nobody enter does. Such a powerful object should be kept in safe hands, and what hands are safer than his? Trusty, dependable Varric, who might have a problem with the truth now and then but knows how to keep his head. Varric would never do anything dangerous, not if it would put his own life at risk. 

He rolls the shard across his desk, feeling the bumps as the irregular surface trundles across paper and wood, the faint song in his head. 

It's beautiful and sad, the song. It makes Varric want to hold the shard up to his ears, even though it has nothing to do with actual sound- it's more like an itch, right at the back of his brain. He wonders if this is how Bartrand heard it, though it's not special enough to make him want to eat lyric or kill people. That's different tastes for you. 

The shard fits neatly into Bianca's stock, slotting into the wood as if it had been meant for it all along. Sometimes, in battle, Varric runs his hand along the planes of her body and feels where the wood turns to stone, the shard coming alive under his touch, Bianca singing in his grip.

Varric would never do anything stupid. But Bianca's song is never quite the same.

\----

Z is for Zzzzzz

"How do you sleep at night?" Cassandra spits, face twisted prettily in rage under that oh-so-severe haircut.

Varric shrugs.

"On top of a pile of money, with many petite women." He smirks. "Does that not match what you've heard?"


End file.
